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Labor groups to rally in Milwaukee for $15 an hour, against Scott Walker

Seeking to marshal both money and the volunteer power of a movement, labor groups will rally in Milwaukee on Labor Day to call for raising the state minimum wage to $15 an hour and for defeating GOP Gov. Scott Walker next year.

The 9 am rally at Aurora Sinai Medical Center on N.12th St. will include appearances by Mahlon Mitchell, a firefighter union president and potential Democratic candidate for governor, and Randy Bryce, a Democratic challenger to House Speaker and Janesville Republican Paul Ryan.

The day of events organized by the Service Employees International Union is also expected to include fast-food workers walking off the job to protest their wages.

"We're struggling to make ends meet," said Margie Brelove of Milwaukee, who says she finds it challenging to survive off her full-time job as a housekeeping worker for Aurora Sinai.

Wisconsin's minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Brelove says she makes $12.64 an hour with health insurance after just under a year at her job.

The "Fight for $15" campaign from the service employees union seeks to combine millions of dollars in political spending by the union and commitments from workers like Brelove to volunteer their time to increase the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, and defeat candidates like Walker who oppose those steps.

"It’s a fundamental change of approach to engage a huge swath of the population that does not participate in politics," Scott Courtney, an executive vice president with the union, said of the effort.

Walker survived an aggressive recall challenge in 2012 from unions such as the service employees group. The governor has signed legislation repealing most collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin as well as so-called right to work legislation, which prohibits requiring private-sector workers to pay fees to a union.

On the minimum wage, Walker has said that he wants to promote jobs that make well above $7.25 an hour rather than increasing it in state law, arguing that doing so could lead to a loss of jobs. Walker doesn't support repealing the state minimum wage but has said that he doesn't think the law "serves a purpose."

State GOP spokesman Alec Zimmerman said it was ultimately Walker who stood with workers, not the unions.

"They reject common-sense reforms and opt for failed policies that would take our state backward," Zimmerman said.

Aurora spokesman Mike Brophy said that the hospital put its own $11.50 an hour minimum salary in place in January and is "consistently named one of the best places to work each year."